Electroporation is known in the art as a method of treating a tissue in order to transiently increase the tissue's permeability to enhance molecular transport either for drug delivery or for sampling of interstitial fluids. Electroporation, or electropermeabilization, ellicits a significant increase in the electrical conductivity and permeability of the cell plasma membrane caused by an externally applied electrical field. Electroporation and electropermeabilization are known in the art. Some chemotherapeutic drugs used in cancer therapy have poor access into the tumor cells. Therefore, electropermeabilization offers an approach for increased drug delivery into the cells and thus better antitumor effectiveness. Tissues can also be electropermeabilized and thus the antitumor effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs potentiated by increasing drug delivery into the cells. It is known that electroporation can be performed both in vivo and in vitro.
Forces resulting from applied electric fields can be used on biological entities such as cells and tissues for many purposes that include cell breakdown, electrophoretic extraction or insertion of molecules, including electroporation or electropermeability, in addition to other forms of molecular manipulation know in the art.
In a system to apply electric fields to biological entities, a set of electrodes are used to establish an electric field within a biological entity. Currently, there is no system to direct, or focus, the established electric field intensity in in vivo and in vitro situations to a specific location within an electric field defined by the set of electrodes.